


The Defiance That Redeems Us

by fullyajar



Category: True Blood
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Ambiguous Relationships, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Gen, Jessica/Adilyn ambiguous relationship, Rescue Missions, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 04:35:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2137179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullyajar/pseuds/fullyajar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The scream slashes through her mind like a lash of a silver chain, and she jolts awake with a gasp. </i><br/>Adilyn.<br/>“Fuck.”</p><p>My take on Jessica’s desperate attempt to save Adilyn, filling in the blanks between 7x07 and 7x08.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Defiance That Redeems Us

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning: ridiculous amount of angst. Like, seriously. Be prepared.  
> Serious warning for (a lot of) **violence, blood,** and **allusions to** ( _NOT depictions of_ ) **torture/rape**. If you watch the show and are not scared off, you should be okay though.  
>  Note: The use of "gonna" and word/verb endings of "in'" instead of "ing" is intentional, as I'm mimicking the Souther accent.

The scream slashes through her mind like a lash of a silver chain, and she jolts awake with a gasp.

“ _Fuck_.”

She’s out of the bed, out of the house, and running barefoot through the pitch-black Louisiana forest before she considers what she’s doing. The scream echoes through her ears, followed by sudden, utter silence almost more terrible than the cry itself.

Trees flash by around her. The forest is a blur as she passes through it, jumping across pools of marsh and fallen trees when they bar her way. The wind whips her face and rushes through her ears like a deafening undertone to the absolute silence in her mind, broken by nothing but the echoing mantra of the girl’s name.

_Adilyn, Adilyn, Adilyn._

She hears no reply, and she swallows against the fear that suddenly paralyzes her where she stands. The clearing around her is drenched in moonlight that shines off her skin.

The wind turns, and she closes her eyes, focusing on the distant presence of the girl, like a ship lost at sea following the dim beacon of hope of a lantern on a distant shore. The world spins around her and tilts on its axis in the total darkness as she searches for the light.

Her eyes snap open. She sees the light, feels the girl – distant, dim, and scared to death.

She rushes in the direction the pinprick of light flickered before it dimmed too far to detect. A tree branch bars her way like a cautionary arm. _Slow down. Think._ She rips through it with a gruff cry and follows her feet.

The silence continues, broken only by the sound of leaves crushed and branches shattered as she pounds across the forest floor without mercy.  She steels her jaw against the continued quiet, and hopes.

She wouldn’t be able to follow this unknown trail, leading her thoughtlessly into oblivion, to danger, and hopefully ( _desperately)_ to Adilyn, if Adilyn were –

_Oh God._

Her blood runs cold as she runs on.

If Adilyn were dead.

Like a taunt lifeline going slack without warning, like a stroke of lightning knocking out a lighthouse beacon, like an abrupt calm in the raging storm she’s navigating to return home…

She’d feel it, right?

She swallows against the dismay when she hears _nothing_ but her own thoughts and the still forest around her as she tears through it _._

Then suddenly, the silent forest is silent no more, and cry of misery rips through it as though it intends to tear the leaves straight from their branches.

Jessica stumbles against the sound like a stake to the gut, and she cries in reciprocal pain as the sole of her feet rips open across a rock. It heals instantly, but she clutches her gut when the pain doesn’t.

 _“Please!”_ Adilyn screams. A distant laugh follows and rocks through her body like a mirror of Adilyn’s terror.

Jessica sucks in a breath she knows she doesn’t need – the dead do not need to breathe – and steels her jaw to keep from shaking.

“ _No, please, please!”_

Her hand shoots out and she steadies herself against a tree when the cry for mercy is accompanied by a sharp stab of pain in both her wrists. She clenches a hand around her own and trembles.

Another cry of pain rips through her mind like boiling silver and lashes around her neck.

She pushes back the tears and the urge to choke around the invisible bind on her throat.

_Oh, Adilyn._

The silence was better. Better than this. The sounds of Adilyn’s torture.

As though the universe heard her thoughts, silence falls again, and she stumbles against the lingering sting on her wrist, her neck, and her gut, and reaches blindly through the darkness, following the now crystal clear beacon of Adilyn’s pain.

 _“Why are you doing this?”_ Adilyn’s voice is no more than a whimper, trapped between a sob and a whine of pain.

A cold laugh she doesn’t recognize follows, and Adilyn cries again.

_“I’m sorry, please. No, don’t hurt him!”_

Jessica stumbles again, Adilyn’s terror slowing her movements like she’s trying to be in two places at once, like she’s throwing all her being against the wall of the connection between them to ease the girls’ pain. _I’m coming. I’m going to save you. Just hold on._ But it doesn’t work – the connection only goes one way – and Adilyn cries out again –

_“No, don’t, no – No!”_

The drawn-out scream that follows pulls her back to her reality.

“Adilyn!”

An owl bursts from the trees and takes flight at the sudden shout of the girl’s name disturbing the peaceful landscape.

This time, she doesn’t stop. She blocks out the sounds of Adilyn’s cries ( _“Please don’t hurt us.” “I haven’t done anything!” “Please, I haven’t even_ lived!”) and rushes through the maze of trees. With loose stones of raw determination and cement of desperation, she builds a wall to block it all out. Adilyn’s terror and plight feels anything but distant when it’s making her very soul ache, but she knows she’s got a long way to go. Even her vampire speed isn’t fast enough to lift the pressure she feels, pushing her forward.

Even as she does, she thinks back. Her cell phone. Andy. Bill. Jason. _Help._ She left them all behind the instant Adilyn cried out.

It’s foolhardy, and she nearly stops in her tracks again.

But Adilyn cries again inside her mind, and her heart jerks her body into action before her mind can chastise it.

She can’t die. She can’t be hurt. Not when she survived…

She swallows against the guilt and speeds up.

Not when she survived _her._

She doesn’t care who has her. She narrows her eyes as the image of her fingers clamped around the culprit’s neck comes to her, squeezing the life from him until the light in his eyes snuffs out.

 _“Are you going to bite me?”_ Adilyn whimpers in her head, and the image in Jessica’s head changes instantly to a silver tipped stake pressed almost sexually into a nameless vampire’s heart.

If Adilyn is captured by a vampire, she only has as much time as the vampire is amused by playing with her. It explains the torture – like a cat toying with a mouse, sinking its claws into the hapless creature’s fur and pulling out with a playful twist. A vampire would play with a faerie – but her time is short. _She_ , out of anyone, knows the impossibility of resisting a faerie’s blood for long.

She runs faster.

Until suddenly, Adilyn’s cry stops her short.

 _“Violet, please._ ”

She freezes on the spot, her eyes wide. A crow caws above her in challenge for his territory.

_Violet._

She steels her jaw and rushes forward again, the new knowledge giving flight to her feet she didn’t know they had.

Of course, it would be a vampire that _knew_ Adilyn was a faerie, not a nameless specter emerging from the dark and stumbling on Adilyn and Wade by chance. No one _stumbles_ upon such a heavenly and infinitely addicting drug – they are led by so-called friends or by irresistible desire down the path of no return.

Bill – possessed with righteous cause as the blood of Lilith coursed through his veins – was her way to the path of no redemption. It was _her_ lack of discipline that finally caved under temptation, but she couldn’t – _wouldn’t –_ have drained Adilyn’s sisters without Bill’s actions – or rather, lack thereof.  

She pushes the thought away.

So Violet, despite her hundreds of years of existence and adamant claims of control, finally caved and searched out the nectar she hadn’t tasted yet.

Unless _…_

An inkling of an idea hits her suddenly, and she stumbles until she stops.

Unless Violet knows about her night with Jason.

 _“Please, we didn’t_ do _anything!”_ Adilyn’s desperate cry, followed by a sob of dismay, keeps her mind on the track she started on.

Adilyn _didn’t_ do anything. And if she was caught for the sole purpose of a curious vampire’s first sip of faerie blood, it would make no sense for Violet to take Wade as well. It’s a well-known tactic – capture two to subdue both with the threat to the other.

Jessica realizes with a jolt that Violet isn’t aiming just to subdue Wade with the threat to Adilyn, or to subdue Adilyn with the threat to Wade – Violet want to subdue _her_ with the threat to Adilyn.

She swallows and grits her teeth.

Violet knows.

Cold, calculating Violet. How could she not?

The path behind her calls to her, urges her to turn back. _It’s a trap, it’s a trap_ , it hisses in poisonous tones. _Get help,_ a more hopeful voice supplies.

She stands undecided, the crickets chirping unmindfully in the underbrush.

If it is a trap, turning back will be Adilyn’s best chance.

But if it isn’t, she’s sealing Adilyn’s fate as surely as if she had finished the job she started the night she murdered her sisters.

Adilyn’s sudden tormented cry makes up her mind for her, and she doesn’t turn back.

Because action and the chance of failure is terrifying, but inaction and Adilyn’s continued suffering unbearable.

Branches slap at her face, tearing small cuts that instantly heal. She’s not weak anymore. Lafayette’s blood has done her more good than she could ever have predicted. She feels it coursing through her veins like cocaine, giving her courage and drive and endless energy.  She’s not far now. Adilyn’s presence is stronger – as is her pain, but she keeps it at bay behind the wall she constructed. If it _is_ a trap, Violet will use her connection to distract her until the last moment, and Adilyn’s torture and fear stabbing her mind and rendering her immobile will be both their downfall as surely as a stake stabbing her heart.

Suddenly, like stumbling into a nightmare, a mansion looms out in front of her. The vines climb across the walls like a cankerous weed, and the windows shine like soulless eyes. The double-story front door is fully ajar, inviting her in as a Venus fly-trap would an unsuspecting fly.

But _she_ isn’t unsuspecting, and though, like the fly, she seeks the sweetness at the bottom of the trap – which she has no doubt by now this is – she’s prepared. Adilyn is her prize, and with the girl’s blood connected to her like it’s coursing through her own veins, she won’t go down without a fight.  

She steps over the threshold into the house.

A deathly hush falls over the air instantly as though even the sounds of the forest are afraid to enter the foreboding house. The hall is long and windowless. Doors lead off from it at even intervals – perfect for an ambush. Jessica turns into the first room she passes.

Rays of moonlight streak across her pale skin as she sneaks past a window, and she slides quickly into the shadows. She edges along the pale walls with silent feet, treading slowly and evenly and listening for any sounds to disturb the utter stillness. She blocks out Adilyn’s fear. Her body is composed, controlled. Her mind clear and centered. She steps single-mindedly through the vast room, taking in the gruesome beasts and roaring bears trapped eternally in a pose of intimidation and threat. She wonders if Violet tortured them and fed on their fear the same way she’s doing to Adilyn.

She turns the corner. A bear’s lifeless eyes stare straight at her. She pushes the thought away.

Adilyn is close. Even through the wall in her mind she quickly fastened from courage and resolve, she can feel the girl. She follows her feet as they follow her heart.

Not a sound disturbs the peace, and she glances around skittishly. This isn’t right. Violet _must_ know she’s here. The ancient vampire has what she wants, what she set the trap for. And yet she can still feel Adilyn’s presence, clear and relatively unharmed despite her fear, beating quietly in the background of her mind like a bass to the game she knows she’ll have to play. If luring Jessica is Violet’s end game, there is no reason Adilyn is still alive. Violet has what she wants.

She takes in the sleek lines of finished oak and mahogany anxiously.

So where is she?

The moonlight catches on a line of stakes tipped with silver shining in their sterling case. Her fingers glance over them, and she grips the handle of a long, thin one with wooden designs weaving through the steel outer cortex – light, quick, and hopefully deadly.

A sound echoes distantly through the house, and it takes her a moment to realize it isn’t just in her mind that she hears it. Adilyn’s moan and whimper fade like the house is hiding her location and pulling the sound into the walls.

She’ll find her. She’ll save her. If it’s the last thing she does.

Which it might very well be.

She pushes on steadfastly.

She feels Adilyn’s heartbeat again – fast, irregular, terrified. Every step forward and the sound is louder, until she can’t discern anymore if it’s in her head or in the house.

Something whispers across the carpet behind her, and she spins around, stake brandished at the ready. A sleek, pale cat with bright gold eyes hisses at her – no true threat. She resists the urge to hiss back, and nearly stakes the mongrel anyway.

The cat slithers away, catching moonlight as it goes, and when silence falls again, Jessica realizes she’s afraid. It’s easy to tread faithfully into a battle and waiting danger when you know it’s there. But this – this empty house echoing with ghosts of dead creatures and the derelict sounds of the agony of her charge, without a wisp of a whisper of her target – it’s unnerving. There is a simplicity and honorable surrender in facing death foreseen, but the hope of escape and getting out alive that rises the closer Adilyn is, is terrifying. It threatens to break her resolve. Her hand trembles, and she grips the stake tighter so the wooden patterns sink into her palm.

She turns the corner out of a room with silent feet, and spots a sliver of yellow light a few yards away stretched across the hallways like an invitation.

She waits, stake held at the ready, for an attack that doesn’t come.

She takes a step closer haltingly.

Not a sound.

Another step. She looks around restively, waiting with her back against the wall and the ray of light playing across her features as she crouches.

A whimper sounds from behind the door. She knows it’s Adilyn. She didn’t need the sound to tell her where Adilyn is – she can hear the girl’s heart beating in both her mind and the hall. She knows she’s in there.

The question is – is Violet?

She waits, her feet steady on the dark wood and every muscle tensed in anticipation, until another cry echoes through the dimly lit doorway – a muffled whimper that sounds uncannily like “ _Help me.”_

Her heart clenches in shared agony, and it’s too much. She glances around furtively once more, and then with her back still to the wall protectively, edges quickly but evenly to the door. It doesn’t make a sound as it swings open and bathes her in light.

She descends the steps, eyes wide and searching in front of her while her ears monitor the silence she leaves behind. The room comes into view, its dark tones and pale light clinical and menacing. In the back, Adilyn’s eyes widen with relief and fill with tears, and Jessica nearly drops the stake when she spots her.

“Oh God,” she whispers, and rushes forward in a blur. Adilyn’s hands are trapped above her in metal cuffs, and leather restraints are tight around her stomach and ankles where she’s standing. Jessica’s hands come up instantly to Adilyn’s cheeks and hold her face tenderly, diffusing all the comfort she can. She feels the connection between them and their reflective anguish soften as Adilyn’s eyes brim with relieved tears.

A grunt sounds next to her, and she turns to see Wade similarly restrained in a chair whose use she’d really rather never have understood. She presses a shaking finger to her lips and shushes him desperately. His eyes are wide with fear, but he complies.

She turns back to Adilyn quickly and ungags her.

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know.” Adilyn’s tears spill over and she stifles a sob. Jessica’s hands flutter uncertainly around her bare body as she shushes her.

“Adilyn, ssh.”

Finding Adilyn had been her one goal – saving her the next. And suddenly it feels like the completion of the first drained all her courage and determination – she hasn’t been this terrified since she was staring down the barrel of Hoyt’s gun, as defenseless, hopeless, and restrained as Adilyn is now.

Something must show on her face, because Adilyn tilts her face against Jessica’s shaking hand when she brushes it past her cheek.

“Jessica,” she whimpers.

“Ssh, you’re gonna be alright.” She swallows against the tears of panic pressing behind her own eyes. “I’m gonna get you out of here.”

 _Get her loose,_ a firm voice she thought she’d lost commands.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Adilyn whispers in a breathless mantra, eyes bright and hopeful.

She looks around. The round room is empty save for Wade, Adilyn, and herself. She knows she’s at the bottom of the Venus fly trap – the door behind her the only way out, but if she’s quick, clever, perhaps she can get them out without Violet noticing.

She puts the stake down and moves her hands quickly to the cuff around Adilyn’s wrist.

The dark metal burns to her touch, and she has to stifle a scream.

“Jessica!”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Jessica grunts. “Silver alloy.” She grits her teeth against the pain. She eyes the cuffs again, and sees what she should have seen before, had her mind not been blurred with panic – the light burnish beneath the grime, the glint of light off the tarnished coat of silver.

Her fingers heal and she braces herself.

She slips her fingers under the cuffs, between Adilyn’s skin and the metal, and pulls again.

This time she can’t hold back a scream, but she doesn’t let go.

“Jessica, your hands!” Adilyn cries.

Her fingers are slipping – slipping on her own blood and flesh as it burns into the silver on the inside of the cuff. She tightens her grip, but it only burns through the newly cauterized flesh and opens a new wound. A cry rips from her throat as the skin melts off her fingers. She pulls one last time – hard, desperate – but her grip slips and she nearly stumbles back.

_No, no, no…_

It’s no use. The silver coating is no accident.

“Jessica, find somethin’ to – “

Something to break the chain. She looks around desperately, but her mind is panicked and drowned in pain, and nothing she sees – ungodly sex toys, spikes and metal bats far too thick to be of use, and curved wrought iron contraptions as brittle as china – offers inspiration.

Her eyes land on the stake.

It’s stainless steel with a wooden core and carvings and a silver tip, and it’s strong – and thin enough to be useful. It’s not the use she had in mind for it, but freeing Adilyn is a far more honorable service.

She jabs the stake into a loop of the chain and twists, putting all her power into the movement without touching the metal.

_It has to work, it must, it must. I have to get her loose, I have to save –_

Adilyn’s cry of pain stops her short, and she realizes with a moan of dismay that she can’t twist the chain to break it without twisting Adilyn’s wrist and breaking _that_ as well.

“No, no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she murmurs instantly. She brushes her fingers soothingly over Adilyn’s tear-stained face.

Adilyn looks up into her face with tearful eyes. Her lip trembles. 

“We’re not gonna get out of here, are we?”

Jessica swallows uncertainly.

Adilyn glances at her wrist and something suddenly flashes in her eyes. She tenses her shoulders and catches Jessica’s eyes again, and there’s a resolve there that Jessica has never seen before.

“Break my wrists,” she grits out.

Jessica pulls back in shock. “No!”

“Break my wrists and give me your blood – I’ll heal.”

Jessica shakes her head desperately, her eyes bright and pleading. “No, I can’t.”

Adiyn’s voice is hoarse from crying. “Yes, you can!”

“No!” Her voice breaks, and she sobs, her grip tightening on the stake she’s still holding like she’s looking to pull strength out of it. “You don’t know what it’s like – my blood you drank, the blood bond. Everything you feel – ”

She feels Adilyn’s fear, Adilyn’s pain, Adilyn’s every emotion more acutely than if she were feeling it herself. Her body’s visceral reactions of Adilyn’s agony when she was running through the forest were blurred by her willpower and desperation, and by the wall she finally brought up to block it out. It doesn’t compare to the irreversible, overpowering reaction of what hurting Adilyn would do. The blood bond would make her feel her every nerve on end, and simultaneously _seeing_ it in the tears Adilyn sheds and _hearing_ it in her screams as they reverberate through her keen ears – it would be too much to endure.

“I just can’t.”

To Jessica, Adilyn is a creature of hope felt too soon and trust given too easily. She smiles to quickly and follows blindly, giving respect and love to those who treat her kindly, and holding onto blind faith in the face of danger. But as she looks, something breaks inside her, and the girl’s sudden loss of hope and acute sting of surrender as she begins to cry is almost more than Jessica can bear.

“We’re gonna die here,” Adilyn whimpers.

“No!” Jessica leans close instantly, pressing her forehead against Adilyn’s before she knows what she’s doing, and instilling as much comfort into the small gesture as she can. “Adilyn, ssh.” Her hands rest tenderly on Adilyn’s cheeks and she wipes away the tears as her whimpers die down. Her own eyes sting with tears in reciprocal helplessness and fear, but she suppresses it, and infuses her whisper with as much determination and certainty as she can.

“I promise you.” She holds Adilyn’s gaze. Adilyn closes her eyes against the tears and shakes her head bleakly. Jessica tightens her grip. “No, Adilyn! Look at me. I promise, I _promise_ , I’m gonna get us out of here. I told you I would keep you safe. And I _will_.”

Adilyn’s eyes hold hers, and they shine with more than tears – though it’s tremulous and frail, Jessica thinks she sees a hint of hope.

It strengthens her own, and she smiles tentatively.

Wade cries out in warning just as a voice, slick as sin, rings through the room.

“How sweet. Should I give you two a moment?”

Jessica whirls around, wielding her stake like an extension of her arm, and glares at Violet with fangs bared.

Violet laughs lightly and descends the stairs with an airy welcoming whirl of her hand.

“So nice of you to join us. Nothing like a nice bit of torture to set the mood and send you running.”

She giggles and eyes Jessica with a dark, playful smile before her ravenous eyes flick to Adilyn. Jessica tenses and steps into Violet’s line of vision, shielding Adilyn.

“What do you want with me, Violet?”

Violet’s smile widens. “We’re just going to have a little fun.”

Violet steps closer. Her hips sway provocatively as she does, but to Jessica it seems anything but sexual – she’s vividly reminded of a predator stalking prey.

“Why have you done this?”

“To help young love.” Her eyes float leisurely between Wade and Adilyn, taking in their vulnerable positions with pleasure. When she looks between Jessica and Adilyn, her smile turns into a knowing smirk. She addresses Adilyn, her tone sweet as honey. “You and Wade had fun here, didn’t you? I could hear you for _hours._ ”

Wade sobs and Adilyn whimpers in response.

Jessica grits her teeth at the thought and in sympathy at Adilyn’s and Wade’s plight – so trusting, so foolish, so quick to realize their mistake and have it rip them from a sweet first time to something straight from a nightmare.

“Don’t talk to her,” Jessica hisses. She tenses her hand on the stake.

Violet sees the movement and raises an eyebrow challengingly.

“Oh, you’re going to fight me, are you?”

Jessica shifts her shoulders, glancing behind her covertly. Adilyn’s eyes are wide in fear, and her breathing is fast and shallow. She’s too close to be safe if it does come down to she and Violet fighting. But when Jessica looks back and Violet’s shoulders are as tight as her own, preparing to pounce, she knows there is no other way.

“I am over 800 years old,” Violet murmurs languidly, stepping closer with confidence. Jessica’s eyes dart around the room. She can’t move from her position without putting Adilyn in danger, but if she doesn’t move with Violet’s threatening steps or circles in response, she’s leaving herself completely open to attack.

“I have had century-long feuds fought over me.”

Violet’s eyes are dark and intimidating, but Jessica holds her ground.

“I have ended wars with a single kill.”

She pulls back her top lip, and her fangs slide out unhurriedly, each millimeter catching the light slowly. Jessica’s eyes go wide. She’s never seen a vampire do that before. Violet’s eyes flash proudly like she knows it.

“You have no idea what you are up against.”

She steadies her terrified mind and focuses. _Protect. Adilyn._

“I am the oldest, the _strongest_ vampire you know.”

Her fingers shift on the stake, weighing it, getting a last feel of it. She licks her lips and tilts her head in challenge.

“Yeah, you see, all I heard was _old_.”

Violet pulls back her lip and hisses furiously. The tension in her shoulders changes, and Jessica knows she made the right call – nothing like a dig at her age to throw Violet off her cool, collected demeanor and leave her open to distraction.

Without hesitation, she rushes forward and angles the stake at Violet’s heart.

The vampire responds with superhuman speed. Her hand shoots out and slaps Jessica’s wrist away like batting a fly.

“Ah!”

Jolts of pain shoot up her arm and she grimaces in agony. Somehow, she keeps her grip on the stake.

 _Jesus Christ._ Violet is fast. Really goddamn fast.

She rushes her again nonetheless.

Violet blocks with lightning fast hands and nearly locks Jessica’s wrist in her own.

Jessica shoves her away and back offs.

And she’s trained. Eight hundred years of practice apparently makes damn well near perfect.

Jessica swallows against the nerves and leaps forward again, swinging the stake in a sharp uppercut like a reverse grip fighting blade.

Violet bends back, and the stake rushes through the air without impact. Jessica stumbles with the momentum, and Violet swipes her hands out like claws across Jessica’s face.

She hisses in pain and retreats again. The four thin wounds across her cheeks heal, but the advancing sting of defeat and desperation lingers. 

“So cute,” Violet mutters.

Jessica steps left and tenses, eyes darting to Adilyn to her right – she’s in Violet’s range. Violet’s eyes flick to the girl – she knows it. She rushes forward before Violet can. The vampire’s arm sweeps out and she crouches to dodge it, and her arm hisses through the air a hair’s breadth above her. She threatens to lose her balance, but recovers, and turns the crouch into a spin. Her arm shoots out, stake in hand.

It lands on empty air.

Violet tuts disapprovingly from her safe distance, and licks her fangs. Jessica never saw her move.

She nearly misses it again – a blur of motion, a threatening hiss, and Jessica twists out of Violet’s arc of attack and dodges a sharp punch successfully – but Violet’s other hand sweeps up and catches her in the jaw like a hook into a fish’s mouth. Her flesh rips, and she screams.

“Jessica!”

Adilyn’s voice trembling with fear is the trigger – she clamps her fingers around Violet’s fingers where they’re digging into her jaw, pulls her closer, and strikes with the stake so fast her movement blurs.

Violet twirls out of the stake’s path like she’s dancing.

Jessica stumbles back, a hand pressed into her throat and her jaw where the wound drips blood. She tastes it in her mouth and knows Violet ripped straight through to below her tongue.

Violet bows, her fingers shining with blood. Jessica bristles, but her heart sinks. Violet is _playing_ with her. The smiling vampire spins a circle in front of her, her black satin dress whirling around her like she’s inviting Jessica to a dance.

Jessica isn’t fast enough. She isn’t strong enough.

The dripping on her throat stops. Her eyes flick to Adilyn, who’s looking at her with wide, anxious eyes.

“Not bad,” the vampire croons. She straightens her shoulders cockily. “But I’m better.”

Violet is right. But Jessica has no choice.

She crouches and eyes Violet resolutely.

Violet tilts her head and waves a corner of her dress through the air.

“Again? Really?”

Jessica’s answer is a blur of a stake aimed straight at her heart.

Violet’s hands shoot out with such speed, Jessica knows she’s lost even before she feels Violet’s ruthless blow to the gut. It lifts her off her feet and she crashes into the wall with a sickening thud – overshadowed only by Violet’s sudden impossibly breezy laugh.

Jessica struggles to her feet. Her body is aching – Adilyn’s fear mixed with Violet’s attacks pulling on every nerves like an infusion of silver. She clutches her side, and contorts in pain when she feels a rib snap back into place and heal. The staccato rhythm of Violet’s heels on the marble as she crosses the room breaks the silence, but Jessica’s vision blurs and she can’t see her, let alone fight.

Her hand loosens on the stake as she sways on her feet and nearly falls to her knees.

“Stop now.” Violet’s words are like a sympathetic suggestion – ‘ _it’s for your own good’_ her tone says, sweetly, caringly.

A high-pitched, terrified whine snaps Jessica’s eyes up.

“Or I snap her pretty little neck.”

The tactic Jessica figured out so efficiently back in the forest – threaten Adilyn to subdue her – works. She freezes where she stands, and her stake hand sags.

Violet smoothes her hand over Adilyn’s face and places her lips at her temple. Adilyn turns away with a whimper. Jessica grits her teeth and takes a threatening step closer, but Violet’s eyes flash and her hand tightens around Adilyn’s throat.

“Ah-ah-ah. I mean it, Jessica.”

Adilyn’s eyes go wide and her breath cuts short as Violet squeezes.

She puts up her hands in defeat and steps back. “Alright! Stop!” Her voice breaks.

Violet’s hand loosens and she smiles cunningly.

“Now, to business,” she purrs. Her lips brush Adilyn’s cheek, and her hand slides up from her throat to hold her face still. Adilyn closes her eyes and swallows helplessly.

“Who else is coming?”

Jessica’s eyes never leave Adilyn, taking in her quivering form as she cowers from Violet’s predatory touch. Her eyes remain closed. _Look at me, Adilyn. Look at me._

Violet’s nails dig into Adilyn’s jaw. “ _Who?”_

 _I should have gotten help, I should have should have should have…_ She swallows thickly.

“Andy. Bill and Sookie. Eric and Pam. Jason.”

Adilyn opens her eyes hopefully, but her face falls when she catches Jessica’s eyes. Jessica has to remind herself that Adilyn can’t read her mind, because the lie shines back in Adilyn’s suddenly shimmering eyes with tragic realization. Violet catches the short exchange and smiles.

“So, no one then.” She brushes a lock of hair from her face and straightens her shoulders cheerfully. “Well, well, well, this is so much easier than I thought it would be. No back-up, no help. Don’t you recognize a trap when you see one?”

She closes her eyes briefly.

“I knew.”

Violet raises an eyebrow. “And still you came?”

She swallows tensely and catches Adilyn’s tremulous gaze. Her eyes soften. _I did. I’m an idiot. I’m so, so sorry. But I did._

Adilyn’s eyebrows pull together in expression of hope and frail curiosity like she’s seeing into her soul. Her lips part in wonder and a puzzled but fond sound escapes from between them. She wonders if Adilyn doubted her promise to protect her. The thought breaks her heart more than it should and she frowns. But then she realizes –

The blood bond isn’t pulsing with doubt – it’s pulsing with trust.

Violet looks between them.

“Oh, that’s just darling. I _knew_ I had it right!” She snaps her fingers with a satisfied smile, and their gazes snap away from each other. Violet’s fingers brush Adilyn’s cheek in a sweet, mocking lover’s caress. She searches Adilyn’s recoiling face until the girl shuts her eyes to escape Violet’s gaze.

The vampire looks up at Jessica with a pointed, wicked smile.

“Does she know you love her?”

Jessica’s eyes wide in shock. Adilyn’s fly open.

“What? No, I – ”

She catches Adilyn’s luminous eyes again, and for a second she swears she can feel her usually still heart beating again in response to Adilyn’s. Beating in fear, in trust, and – yes, in love. Her heart swells with something fiercely protective that’s simultaneously comforting and terrifying in the lengths it’ll go to to keep Adilyn safe, and she knows she can’t deny it.  It defies her attempts to grasp, to name. Perhaps it’s the blood bond, the bond mimicking the unique relationship between maker and progeny. It _is_ love. Just not of a kind she’s ever felt before.

“I – “ she swallows. _I do. But not like_ that. “I – ”

“I honestly don’t care,” Violet interrupts with a lazy flick of her wrist. “I just know _you_ do.” She licks her lips and gestures around the room. “And she loves Wade.” Wade cowers from her gaze. “And that’s going to be very useful in a little bit.”

Jessica swallows hard and eyes the objects around them – objects of torture or pleasure, she can’t be sure, but she has no doubt that in Violet’s book, the two are one and the same, and when she catches Adilyn’s eyes, she has to hold back tears.

 _Be strong, be strong._ She thinks as hard as she can, hoping Adilyn understands. Adilyn’s eyes fill with tears, but she holds Jessica’s gaze resolutely.

“My only question is – ” Violet interjects suddenly, and Jessica looks up in shock to hear the sickly sweetness has melted away like ice cream in the sun. Her voice cracks like breaking bones. “If you care so much for this precious and no doubt delicious faerie here” – Adilyn whimpers as Violet clenches her hand around her throat – “why did you fuck Jason?”

Jessica raises her hands disarmingly, pleading without words. _Let her go, let go._ “It just happened.”

Violet’s hand doesn’t loosen. Adilyn’s breathes out in a rush – and doesn’t breathe in again.

“It just _happened,_ ” Violet repeats in a sing-song voice dripping with sharp derision.

Her nails press crescents of redness into Adilyn’s throat.

“He spends over 6 months in celibacy in anticipation for being with _me,_ controlling his urges and coming home like a good pet, and somehow with you – ” she looks her up and down, eyeing her bare feet and rumpled clothes with disdain “ – he loses control and _fucks_ you like an animal.”

“The animal you made him!” she cries, reaching forward desperately across the long distance in supplication. Her lip trembles. Adilyn isn’t breathing “Please, your hand – let go!”

It’s like Violet has forgotten her hand completely where it’s slowly pressing the life out of Adilyn. She rolls her eyes and ignores her. “Puh-lease. Jason was an animal far before _I_ came along.” Her hand tightens. Jessica swears she can hear cartilage crack.

Something snaps inside her in response like a flash of bright flint struck to breaking – rage and utter desperation rise from the wreckage. 

“Maybe being with _you_ just wasn’t all he thought it would be!”

Violet’s hand loosens in shock, and Adilyn gasps gratefully for air.

“How dare you!” Violet screeches. Jessica is prepared for the attack and weighs the stake in her hand in preparation. But the blur of motion across the marble floor – almost too quick to see, definitely too quick to hold off, but just enough to give Adilyn respite – doesn’t come.

Instead, Violet’s hand twist in Adilyn’s hair and the other digs into her temple, contorting her neck into a painful position.

“Jessica!” Adilyn cries. Jessica rushes forward instantly.

Violet’s eyes shine and she jerks Adilyn’s neck in warning. She freezes.

“One more step – one more _word_ – ” She twists again and clicks her tongue in a cruel imitation of a snapping neck. Adilyn sobs, her eyes shut tight against the pain. Wade lets out a muffled cry of despair behind her just as Jessica does as well.

“No! Stop!” Her hand trembles. “What – what do you want!?” she demands.

“Vengeance,” Violet hisses with bared fangs.

“Then take it!” Her voice breaks in desperation. “On me! Please! Just – just let her go. Let _them_ go.”

Violet clucks her tongue and smiles wickedly.

“This isn’t a negotiation.”

She has no way out. Adilyn’s hands chaff red against the silver shackles she has no idea how to loosen. And even if she did - the Louisiana forest stretches for miles around, taunting her with its vastness and lack of sanctuary, and whispering to her about a terrifying nightmare of Violet chasing her and Adilyn through the dark night like a 12th century fox hunt. Wade grunts and struggles against his ties behind her, Adilyn’s name escaping in a muffled cry from behind his gag as the girl in front of them whimpers. There are multitudes of obstacles to overcome –

(Violet digs her sharp nails into Adilyn’s temple like a cat sinking its claws into its prey.)

– and the greatest of all is eyeing her like a challenge won.

She swallows thickly. There is no way out. _She_ is the one Violet wants to hurt. It was her actions – her foolish, foolish tryst with Jason – that fueled Violet’s vengeance. And yet it is Adilyn and Wade who will pay the price. Violet will rip out Adilyn’s throat, or drain her dry, or torture and rape and – her eyes fog with tears as she pushes away the thought. Violet’s going to kill Adilyn –  to hurt _her_.

And she has nothing left to bargain with.

She freezes.

Except…

With sudden determination, she raises the stake and presses the tip to her own heart. The silver hisses against her skin and the scent of burning flesh drifts to her nostrils, but she holds it in place.

“Is this what you want?” Her voice breaks and her eyes fill with tears. “Is it!?”

Adilyn jerks her neck against Violet’s hold. “Jessica, no!”

Violet pulls her back, clamps a hand over her mouth, and changes Adilyn’s position. With a jolt of dismay, Jessica realizes it’s so the girl has a perfect view. Adilyn’s chest rises and falls in quick shallow heaves at the sight in front of her.

When Jessica imagined pressing a silver-tipped stake to a vampire’s heart tonight, she never thought it would be her own – but her own death is the only payment she can offer that may satisfy Violet’s lust for vengeance.

Violet appraises her with a smile. “Well, it’s a start,” she purrs.

The poetic justice that she should give her life for Adilyn’s when six months ago she was nearly the cause of her death isn’t lost on her – nor is the small voice that whispers that, despite Adilyn and Andy's forgiveness, her life is the only true restitution she could ever offer for three other lives lost.

Her hold on the stake is steady and determined. “Then let them go.”

Violet tilts her head, calculating. “And what – you’ll stake yourself for me?”

Her nod is short and resolute. Adilyn shakes her head against Violet’s hand across her mouth and rattles the chains around her wrists. Her eyes are wide and pleading. Jessica’s vision blurs red. _Please don’t, Adilyn. Please._ She blocks it out.

“If you let them go.”

Violet’s fingers inch out of Adilyn’s hair and caress her neck. Jessica sees her linger on her pulse. “How about we make it just us girls?” Violet suggests light-heartedly.

Jessica’s eyes flick to Wade guiltily, but she steels her jaw. He’s not her charge – Adilyn is. The girl’s eyes widen beseechingly like she sees it in Jessica’s face.

“No. Adilyn goes free.”

She holds her gaze. _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry._ Adilyn’s eyes swim with tears and suddenly Jessica sees her only through a sheen of crimson.

This will be quick – no more torture, no more pain. This will be simple – walking into death’s waiting arms like greeting a friend she missed a date with 3 years ago. This will give Adilyn a fighting chance.  She just wishes she could have fought for her a little longer.

Violet looks between them curiously and clicks her tongue. “Well, I truly underestimated…” she pauses and smirks, “whatever _this_ is, between you.”

Jessica shifts the stake. Her skin hisses and she grits her teeth.

_As did I._

Violet’s dark eyes hold hers. There’s an experimental, probing glint in her eye that Jessica doesn’t recognize and she tenses with trepidation.  Though Violet’s voice is smooth and disarming, it does nothing to ease her sudden disquiet. She braces herself.

“Well then, say goodbye.”

Jessica’s heart jumps with simultaneous hope and dread. Violet will release them – at the price of her death.

_Oh dear God._

Her hand is shaking on the stake, and she can’t subdue it. Nor can she subdue the tears and the bitter sob that wells in her throat as she finds Adilyn’s panicked face. Her cheeks shine with tears in the dim light, and she cries silently into Violet’s hand. Jessica wishes she could reach out to comfort her, to shoulder her pain and fear and let it unburden her for the flight to freedom Adilyn has ahead. Jessica will take it with her – wherever she’s going – like a last memory of the girl she took far too long to realize she cared for so profoundly.

“Adilyn, run west and don’t stop running until you find a house owned by humans. Do not invite _anyone_ in – not even me.” She closes her eyes to clear her vision, and feels the hot tears leak down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep my promise.” _To protect you._ She swallows back the regret. _And to get us_ both _out of here alive._

She can’t seem to keep a single promise lately.

“Wade…” she glances at the boy and his awed, young face and pauses. There is nothing to say, except – “Keep her safe.”

Wade holds her gaze and nods faithfully. Perhaps he’ll do a better job at keeping his promises than she did.

A slow, light clap echoes through the room, and Jessica snaps her eyes back to Violet.

“Oh, this is _touching._ ” She throws her head back and laughs, and Jessica’s blood runs ice-cold.  Violet licks her lips and brushes a kiss on Adilyn temple. “Sweet girl.” She glances at Jessica from the corner of her eyes and turns her head slowly, her fangs catching the light like twin daggers. “You really thought I’d let them go _._ ” Violet’s eyes flash dangerously, filled to the brim with nothing but betrayal. Her smile is the smile of a wolf before it crunches on the hapless bones of the rabbit, and her fangs glisten – and angle towards Adilyn’s throat.

Jessica doesn’t hesitate – she should have known, she should have _known_ – her stake hand twists away from her heart and she charges.

Adilyn turns her face from Violet’s fangs and screams Jessica’s name.

Violet chuckles – a hard, cold cackle like shattering glass – and Jessica’s heart soars with frail hope that she has the element of surprise – that the smell of Adilyn’s blood is enough of a distraction to give her an edge that she so desperately needs.

The world is suddenly moving in slow motion, but the half-second it takes her to hope for the miracle is the total of the thought’s short lifespan. Adilyn’s eyes are wide and terrified. Violet’s fangs are long and deadly as they approach her skin. And Jessica’s movement is swift and frantic. But her stake arm – raised above her like Death’s scythe – casts a sudden shadow across Violet’s face, and the vampire’s hand shoots out and stops Jessica short with unyielding fingers around her throat.

The stake slashes down nonetheless, but Violet’s other hand catches her wrist mid-air and holds.

She stands locked against Violet, face-to-face, as surely as the silver shackles holding Adilyn. She struggles, pushing against the superior vampire’s steel grip with all the strength she can muster, and turns the stake. The silver tip brushes Violet’s cheek, opening her skin with a sizzle. Her face contorts with rage.

Violet flicks her wrist, and Jessica screams in pain when her own splinters. The fragments of bone chafe each other as she desperately holds on to the stake.

Violet eyes her hand like she can hear it as well, and smiles cruelly.

With rigid fingers – Jessica’s breath hitches as it cuts off – Violet pulls her closer – close enough to see the gleam of a tear on Adilyn’s lip next to her and the edge of the shadow of the stake across the vampire’s face.

"Foolish girl."

Violet shoves her back like her (waning) resistance is nothing and the back of her head her whacks against the stone wall across the room. Her vision fills with light and her minds swirls into confusion.

_Let it be the sun, let it be the sun._

(It isn’t.)

Her vision clears only to be filled with the image of Violet’s malicious grimace. Her elbow whips out. Jessica’s face smacks the wall.

“Why would I let you stake yourself – ”

Her hand shoots out. The blow collides with Jessica’s ribcage, a sharp sting holding fast.

“ – when it’s so much more fun – ”

A uppercut catches her in her gut. Her cry turns into a sob of pain.

“ – to do it myself – ”

The ancient marble of Violet’s knuckles cracks down on her shoulder (the way it cracks, she might be porcelain) with a sour, copper pain.

“ – and have Jason there to see it?”

Violet’s fist collides with her jaw. She staggers to bended knee. Blood gushes from her mouth and pools next to her splayed fingers where she steadies herself. Her body pounds with agony sewn into every vein and nerve and muscle.

Her voice is raw. “Jason?” Blood gurgles in her throat, even while her vision blurs with it. Still, she looks up and takes in Violet’s towering form. Violet tilts her head and twists her mouth in a smile like poison.

“You didn’t think this trap was just for you, did you?”

 _Of course._ Adilyn was the bait to lure her. And she’s the bait to lure Jason. And both the people she cares for ( _loves_ a shy, miserable voice whispers softly) will end up paying for her mistake.

The defeat shows on her face, because Violet’s smile widens, and she strikes out like trapping the king in checkmate. Jessica crumbles around her punch, and she slides across the room like rag doll.

Her grip on the stake finally yields. It clatters to the floor with a resounding finality.

Her eyelids flutter. The room spins. 

_Get up._

“Jessica,” Adilyn cries, and Jessica realizes she’s next to her.

Violet’s stiletto-clad feet cross the floor lazily – approaching.

Adilyn needs her.

 _Get up_.

She reaches out blindly. Her fingers brush Adilyn’s clammy skin like it’s the last time.

“Adilyn…” Her whimper is an apology.

Violet laughs again – dangerously close.

It can’t end like this.

_Get up._

She struggles to her elbows and reaches for the stake lying just beyond her reach, but with a sharp smack, Violet’s foot pins her broken wrist to the ground. She screams in pain. Her vision blurs red as Violet lifts her chin. 

“You lose.” 

She does.

Violet’s finishing blow lands with a hollow sound – she’s empty, she’s done, and Adilyn is as sure as dead – and the worlds spins into darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that was sadistically fun to write. The show provided plenty of angst, but left a wonderful blank spot for me to fill. :) 
> 
> I have written about 3 fighting scenes in total, EVER, so I’d really like feedback on them, especially the pacing, clarity of action, and suspense. I’d be very grateful if you leave a comment! Thanks for reading!


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